Get ready for another Obama pivot to jobs and the economy

posted at 12:01 pm on June 12, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Give Barack Obama this much credit: the man really knows how to pivot. Or at least he really knows how to talk about pivoting. Ever since late 2009, the Obama administration keeps insisting that it will pivot to jobs and the economy, and every time they end up riding some hobby horse rather than trying to get anything done. In the campaign context, they’ve tried everything they can to avoid talking about the economy, throwing up one distraction after another in an attempt to frame the election around Mitt Romney’s supposed oddities rather than Obama’s performance.

How successful have they been? Last night, the Wall Street Journal reported that Obama is now pivoting — excuse me, “reframing” — his campaign message toward the economy:

President Barack Obama will use a campaign policy speech Thursday to contrast his preferred approach for the country’s economic future with ideas proposed by his likely Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, people familiar with the speech said.

Finally! The candidate will address the issue that most voters put at the top of their priority list, rather than gay marriage and Romney’s prep-school antics. What new solutions will he offer? Er …

Mr. Obama’s address in Cleveland, described by his aides as a “framing” speech, isn’t expected to include any major new proposals. While some of his political advisers had pushed for that, his economic team made clear they don’t see many fresh options, particularly when Congress hasn’t passed the bulk of a jobs bill that the president unveiled nine months ago, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Well, the Senate is controlled by his own party. If they haven’t passed Obama’s agenda — indeed, his own team seems entirely disinterested in it, to the extent they know about it at all — maybe that’s a hint that some new thinking is required. Instead, Obama plans to push ahead with the same, tired proposals that have received bipartisan indifference. And most worrisome for Obama’s allies is that the administration still hasn’t come up with a Plan B:

People familiar with the speech say the White House believes those proposals still represent Mr. Obama’s best ideas for spurring the economy, and there are no alternative policies waiting in the wings.

Small wonder that Obama hasn’t wanted to discuss the economy. He has nothing left to say. Dana Milbank writes today of the deepening conclusion in Washington that the month shows Obama running out of gas — and so is the economy. Obama administration officials are now trying to downplay expectations for a Recovery Summer, emphasis mine:

For the White House, it was just the latest entry in the when-it-rains-it-pours ledger. This has been one of the worst stretches of the Obama presidency. In Washington, there is a creeping sense that the bottom has fallen out and that there may be no second term. Privately, senior Obama advisers say they are no longer expecting much economic improvement before the election. …

The AP asked about the president’s unfortunate private-sector-is-fine remark. The Reuters correspondent asked about the economic “head winds” from Europe. Ed Henry of Fox News Channel asked about the looming contempt-of-Congress vote against Attorney General Eric Holder. Margaret Talev of Bloomberg News asked about the Supreme Court striking down Obamacare. Norah O’Donnell of CBS News asked about calls for a special prosecutor to probe leaks. Victoria Jones of Talk Radio News asked about the stalled talks with Pakistan.

Carney sought relief by calling on TV correspondents from swing states, but the one from Wisconsin asked about the failed attempt to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the one from Nevada asked about her state’s unemployment rate, the nation’s highest.

It’s time for fresh ideas, and it’s clear that Obama doesn’t have any.

In a new report released by James Carville’s liberal nonprofit public opinion research group, Democracy Corps, data from focus groups shows that Barack Obama is taking the wrong approach to the campaign by focusing on economic issues.

The co-authors of the report, Carville, Stan Greenberg and Erica Seifert, claim that the Obama campaign must “move to a new narrative” in order to be successful in November. The authors use the first person plural “we” throughout the report to describe Democratic efforts.

The current campaign is focused on success in the economic recovery, but Carville’s group says the strategy is “wrong” and “will fail.” The only reason Obama is keeping up in the campaign is because voters perceive Romney as “out of touch with ordinary people.”

Even that’s a thin reed for hope:

While most of the voters in the focus groups were forceful in their complaints about Romney’s lack of connection with the working class, they seemed to agree that he would do a better job than Obama on the economy.

Mr. Obama’s address in Cleveland, described by his aides as a “framing” speech, isn’t expected to include any major new proposals. While some of his political advisers had pushed for that, his economic team made clear they don’t see many fresh options, particularly when Congress hasn’t passed the bulk of a jobs bill that the president unveiled nine months ago, according to people familiar with the discussions.

There you have it. His only option will be to say, “I put a jobs bill on the table nine months ago, and Republicans in Congress refuse to pass it. Why? Why are the Republicans standing in the way of the economic recovery? Because they don’t want the economy to recover until they get me out of office. They are rooting for the economy to fail, so they can win this election. Shame on them.”

Book it. It’s lies from beginning to end, but plenty of people will buy it. Is the average voter in a position to evaluate the ability of a bill that was offered nine months ago to create jobs? I thought this was going to be the heart of the Obama campaign all along. They were using this approach earlier, closer to when the bill was first presented, and it seemed to be taking a toll on the congressional Republicans’ approval numbers. I remember being a little concerned at that time, and I was relieved when they took their eye off of the that ball.

IMO, bho/team/d’s have waited way way too long to make any difference on jobs before the election? You can not get enough money(what bho wants) out to get enough people working? You can not get the epa to stop all the krap they are up to in states where jobs are cratering before the election? EVEN if bho says he will OK the keystone pipeline, jobs will not happen much before election?
L

While most of the voters in the focus groups were forceful in their complaints about Romney’s lack of connection with the working class, they seemed to agree that he would do a better job than Obama on the economy.

This doesn’t make sense at all. I know that not every big wig out there has had to work hard, but the majority of people who succeed in life were part of the working class at one time. The “working class” stays the “working class” because they already have it in their mind that everyone is against the “working class” and they can’t get ahead because they are being held there. For someone to be able to fix the economy, wouldn’t that person need to understand the “working class”.

Of course Obama has nothing new to say about fixing the economy. When he made his idiotic “the private sector is fine” comment, he went on to say we need to gives the states and local governments (tax) money to hire more teachers etc. to get the economy going. Now we find his hometown teachers union has overwhelmingly voted to strike if they don’t get a 30% pay raise. Yep, that’ll spur Chicago and Illinois’ economy! The only thing Obama understands is government and that if given the chance, HE could prove socialism works!

Carville is overrated.
Ross Perot put Clinton in the White House and not James Carville.
Perot put him there and Bob Dole kept him there.
His big strategy to win reelection is to avoid the number one issue in the country and try to do political card tricks…?
Fine with me.
Good luck with that because Romney will be talking about the economy and when he gets Obama in front of a national audience he will dismantle him on his abysmal record of economic despair.

We’ve been told that Obama is going to “pivot towards jobs” and is “focused like a laser beam on jobs” since 2009. The result has been the longest sustained period of high unemployment since the Great Depression.

Besides, it’s FAR too late for Barry Hussein Soetoro to do ANYTHING to bring about a perceptible improvement in the economy that will benefit him by November. He had to have it moving a year ago.

But if he wants to try….

1. Rescind by executive order ALL regulations enacted by his executive branch since he was inaugurated.
2. Lift all bans on oil exploration.
3. Approve the Keystone Pipeline.
4. Suspend all enforcement of Obamacare and sign it’s repeal.
5. Make the current tax rates permanent, set up a bi-partisan panel to explore revision of the entire tax code.
6. Cut our corporate tax rate in half.

Anyone see Obama doing ANY of that? I don’t either. Which is why we’ve been living through 3.5+ years of the Obama Depression.

If this clueless twit had supported Simpson-Bowles, he might have had a chance. Instead, he smugly proposed another stimulus to spend more on teachers, firemen, and cops – all public sector union jobs. JOBS in the private sector was supposed to be his job from Day 1! He deserves to get his a$$ handed to him on Nov 6th.

I don’t care if Mr. Romney’s in touch with me or not. I don’t want to play kissy face with him, I want him to do his job and given how he managed the Olympics and Bain, it seems like he’s can. Unlike Mr Community Disorganizer.

The much heralded pivot is never not a 360 single spin back to Bush (or Bush surrogate i.e. Mitt) bashing, liberal candy (red meat too substantive a term) like equal rights for fair carneys for the base, a grandiose-but-no-details plan laced with some pretty icing like… infrastructure reformation , and ba dum bum bum bum (that’s a drum roll)….a special presser in front of oh, say a kite manufacturing plant in a swing state that received stimulus $ but in reality is teetering on the edge of insolvency or bankruptcy.

KROFT: Why you? I mean, why do you think you would be a good president?

OBAMA: Well, I was going to get to that.

KROFT: Go ahead.

OBAMA: You know, I’m a, I’m a practical person. One of the things I’m good at is getting people in a room with a bunch of different ideas who sometimes violently disagree with each other and finding common ground and a sense of common direction. And that’s the kind of approach that I think prevents you from making some of the enormous mistakes that we’ve seen over the last eight years.

Carville is overrated.
Ross Perot put Clinton in the White House and not James Carville.
Perot put him there and Bob Dole kept him there.
His big strategy to win reelection is to avoid the number one issue in the country and try to do political card tricks…?
Fine with me.
Good luck with that because Romney will be talking about the economy and when he gets Obama in front of a national audience he will dismantle him on his abysmal record of economic despair.

People familiar with the speech say the White House believes those proposals still represent Mr. Obama’s best ideas for spurring the economy, and there are no alternative policies waiting in the wings.

unstinkingbelievable and folks still want this guy for another 4 years…seriously????

Small wonder that Obama hasn’t wanted to discuss the economy. He has nothing left to say.

Translation: The Grifter-In-Chief has run out of scams.

“A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual operating alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, naivety and greed.”

In Washington, there is a creeping sense that the bottom has fallen out and that there may be no second term. Privately, senior Obama advisers say they are no longer expecting much economic improvement before the election. …

Pirouette as he will, no amount of ballet will fix the mess he and his accomplices have created. As they see his campaign crumble what will the dems do?

I think if Obamacare is oveturned at SCOTUS, Obama’s goose is cooked. He would have spent 2 years for nothing. And Romney will pound that into peoples’ heads.

lorien1973 on June 12, 2012 at 12:13 PM

I suspect the SC is going to split the baby. Overturn the mandate but allow the rest. That is a net plus for Obama and re-enrgizes his base as it is one step closer to bankrupting insurance companies and moving towards single pay.

Cleveland, along with Cincinnati, is Obama’s Ohio base, so here you have Obama still trying to sure up his base in a pivotal swing state. He isn’t trying to get new voters by appearing in Cleveland…he’s trying to sure up and motivate his base and spending campaign money to do it. That’s pretty bad.

Of course Obama has nothing new to say about fixing the economy. When he made his idiotic “the private sector is fine” comment, he went on to say we need to gives the states and local governments (tax) money to hire more teachers etc. to get the economy going. Now we find his hometown teachers union has overwhelmingly voted to strike if they don’t get a 30% pay raise. Yep, that’ll spur Chicago and Illinois’ economy! The only thing Obama understands is government and that if given the chance, HE could prove socialism works!

cartooner on June 12, 2012 at 12:17 PM

This would make a great counter-punch when they say that Romney is against hiring teachers, police, and firemen. Show a dreary landscape with unemployed people with no hope for improvement. Then contrast that with the greedy unionized Chicago teachers demanding a 30% pay raise.

Such an eager lil’ spinner is Preezy Dervish. Round and round he pivots to jobs, yet less and less people seem to be able to get them. Must be something in the way he is communicating the pivoting, one supposes.

The important question for today- whilst lil’ choomie the golfing queen is doing all this pivoting, does she employ “jazz hands”?

Obama plans to push ahead with the same, tired proposals that have received bipartisan indifference. And most worrisome for Obama’s allies is that the administration still hasn’t come up with a Plan B:

How is this reframing his message? It’s the same tired stale combination of class warfare, sops to the union thugacracy, radical socialism, and crony capitalism disguised as a “balanced approach to energy.” We probably have heard this particular speech countless times already and could start up a drinking game with the same old phrases.

Obama’s Plan A isn’t even supported by his party. He has no Plan B as he returns to the same old rhetoric. Good thing that the private sector is booming!

I suspect the SC is going to split the baby. Overturn the mandate but allow the rest. That is a net plus for Obama and re-enrgizes his base as it is one step closer to bankrupting insurance companies and moving towards single pay.

a capella on June 12, 2012 at 1:04 PM

Well then, you’d be wrong. Even the flying monkeys employed by Obama admit that without the mandate the bill is unworkable. It is the funding mechanism (more accurately the wealth redistribution mechanism) that drives Obamacare.

Of course it’s unworkable. How the rest of it gets funded is not the SC’s worry. Forcing insurance companies to insure pre-existing conditions? You think the public doesn’t love that part? You think the public really cares about the bottom line of insurance companies? Unless the whole thing is overturned, this is a net gain for the libs long term goal, which is single pay.

You know what? After three years of hearing the jug-eared Kenyan whine about what he inherited, I would love for some reporter to ask him what kind of an inheritance he has left for his successor and the future generations of Americans saddled with crushing debt so he could pay off the UAW, his bundlers and other allies.